Friday, August 31, 2007

They Steal Our Jobs?

Around mid-August I was sitting on the couch watching TV when my older brother came up to me and handed me a book. I gave him the “what in the world” is this look. He could have given me anything else, but no, he had to give me a book. Nevertheless, I accepted this book. The book is called “The Undercover Economist” and Tim Harford wrote it. It turned out to be a pretty good read.

This book had a little bit of everything, from who pays for your coffee to what supermarkets don’t want you to know. Reading it I stumbled upon a paragraph where he briefly touched immigration. As I read that section it made me think, “Dude, he’s right!” The paragraph in question reads as follows:

“Well educated workers with jobs requiring skill and training, along with businessmen in need of cheap labor, tend to welcome immigration as part of an enriching process, which adds to each nation’s economic and cultural life, while poorly educated workers tend to reject any further immigration by unskilled immigrants on the grounds that, “They steal our jobs.” Perhaps that’s too much of a caricature, but it makes sense from a self-interested viewpoint.”

I am not going to get deeply into immigration in this entry. Yet, after reading that paragraph you must agree with his point of view on immigration. When was the last time that a professional worker has gotten his or her job taken away from an immigrant? Those that fight immigration by saying “they steal our jobs” are people that have what I like to call “crappy get nowhere jobs.” They have the type of job that anyone on the street can accomplish.

Most of the good jobs require some type of education with a degree. If you want to make the big bucks then get a degree. Most of us are rational thinkers, or at least I hope, and we all don’t like paying more than we have to on anything. So, why pay more on labor when you can hire cheap labor for the same job?

If you have ever said, “They steal our jobs” then you are an uneducated loser. The only people that can say, “they steal our jobs” are immigrants that have been here longer than the new ones coming in. The real battle over jobs is between themselves and for us to say immigration is bad based on that belief is simple minded and idiotic. If that bothers you then you must be an unskilled worker, and instead of bitching about it do something for yourself. Go back to school and get some valuable skills.